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Waffle House
Waffle House, Inc. is an American restaurant chain with 2,100 locations in 25 states in the United States. Most of the locations are in the South, where the chain is a regional cultural icon. Waffle House is headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, in the Atlanta metropolitan area. History The first Waffle House opened on Labor Day weekend in 1955 at 2719 East College Avenue in Avondale Estates, Georgia. That restaurant was conceived and founded by Joe Rogers Sr. (1919–2017) and Tom Forkner (1918–2017). Rogers started in the restaurant business as a short-order cook in 1947 at the Toddle House in New Haven, Connecticut. By 1949, he became a regional manage with the now-defunct Memphis-based Toddle House chain, then he moved to Atlanta. He met Tom Forkner while buying a house from him in Avondale Estates. The first Waffle House restaurant in Avondale Estates, now a museum, with the original "syrupy" font on the sign Rogers's concept was to combine the speed of fast food with table service with around-the-clock availability. He told Forkner, "... You build a restaurant, and I'll show you how to run it," recalls Tom Forkner. Forkner suggested naming the restaurant Waffle House, as waffles were the most profitable item on the 16-item menu. The fragile nature of waffles also made the point that it was a dine-in, not a carry-out, restaurant, but it confused patrons as to meal availability other than breakfast. Rogers continued to work with Toddle House, and to avoid conflict of interest, sold his interest to Forkner in 1956. In 1960, when Rogers asked to buy into Toddle House, and they refused, he moved back to Atlanta and rejoined Waffle House, now a chain of three restaurants, to run restaurant operations. Shortly after Joe returned full-time, Tom followed suit and left Ben S. Forkner Realty. After opening a fourth restaurant in 1960, the company began franchising its restaurants and slowly grew to 27 stores by the late 1960s, before growth accelerated. The company is privately held and does not disclose annual sales figures, but says they serve 2% of the eggs used in the nation's food-service industry. The founders limit their involvement in management, and as of 2013, Joe Rogers Jr. was CEO and retired late 2013, and Bert Thornton is President. Although the Waffle House chain is concentrated in the Southeast, it has reached as far to the north as Austinburg, Ohio, near Ashtabula, as far to the west as Goodyear, Arizona, in the suburbs of Phoenix, as far to the south as Key Largo, Florida, and as far to the east as Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In 2007, Waffle House repurchased the original restaurant, which was sold by the chain in the early 1970s and was most recently a Chinese restaurant. The company restored it using original blueprints for use as a private company museum. The museum is used primarily for internal corporate events and tours. Tours are available on Wednesday's at 11am or 1pm. In 2008, one of the biggest Waffle House franchises in the southeast, North Lake Foods, was bought out by Waffle House, Inc. North Lake Foods filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and closed some stores. Waffle House, Inc. plans to rehabilitate the franchise. In early 2009, East Coast Waffles bought North Lake Foods to become a new franchise. The founders of the Waffle House brand died in 2017 within two months of each other: Joe Rogers Sr. died on March 3 and Tom Forkner on April 26. Category:Breakfast Restaurants Category:Restaurants